Poetry by Timothy Direlle Batson

      Stephen A. Wolfe CC




Drunk

                                It’s not an emergency 
1 am phone call, no message
half-lidded sleep eyes see
the smoke of menthol cigarettes
curling out of the receiver; little blue vapors
vodka-soaked fulmination, loneliness, madness

                                It’s not an emergency
2:20 am phone call, muddled words
he is Ötzi thawing from the ice 
says I love you... I love you
like it’s supposed to mean something
like in the saying, he will become

                               It’s not an emergency
4:43 am phone call, mouth breathing
flushes of orange kindle through the blinds
a graveled throat pours out into exhausted ears
all sins, all fragility, promises, infidelity
wearing down the will to nothing

                                It’s not an emergency






ART

I have been so angry for so long now
that
I am unsure if I know how to feel anything else and I know, that is a slow way to die

                systemic failure 
                economic collapse
                artistic impotence

; (the things I didn’t say)

triangles on triangles
where the intersection of focus is the sun; couples in a mirror; a bouquet pinned to the front of a dress; an arrow pierced heart; a boat in the water; stars that wheel overhead; their eyes;

                 one color from a giant brushstroke. 
moving moving moving

We stood on the balcony passing a joint back and forth;
the sky fracturing the flat gray into cerise, coral, cornflower
alliterating all futures unfolding before us

                 there is emptiness inside skyscrapers
                 time travel is consequential 
                 everything changes 

I believe in futility and meaning. I know the elegiac thing would be to separate those two words with a comma (futility, meaning)

breathe them out with a line break

but the and is the best part. 
it makes me want to live

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Timothy Direlle Batson is a Seattle, WA based writer and aspiring cool dude. His writing has appeared in Roi Fainéant, Punk Monk Press and other publications. He is publisher and EIC @midlvlmag and can sometimes be found @thevicarslice